sympathetic feelings are nothing more nor less than those simple and universal intimations of moral rectitude and impropriety which instantaneously rise up in the minds of all men, when certain actions are presented to their view.

CHAPTER XXV.

DR. PALEY.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

THE REVEREND DR. WILLIAM PALEY was born at Peterborough in Northamptonshire in 1743, and educated under his father, who was master of Giggleswick school in Yorkshire. In his sixteenth year he entered the university of Cambridge as sizer of Christ's college. According to his own account, he spent the first two years of his under-graduateship happily, but very unprofitably. "I was," says he, "constantly in society, where we were not immoral, but idle, and rather expensive. At the commencement of my third, however, after having left the party at rather a late hour in the evening, I was awakened at five in the morning by one of my companions, who stood at my bed-side and said,

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Paley, I have been thinking what a fool you are. I could do nothing probably were I to try, and can afford the life I lead; you could do every thing, and cannot afford it. I have had no sleep during the whole night on account of these reflections, and am now come solemnly to inform you, that if you persist in your indolence I must renounce your society." "I was so struck," says Paley, says Paley," with the visit and the visiter, that I lay in my bed great part of the day, and formed my plan. I ordered my bed-maker to prepare my fire every evening, in order that it might be lighted by myself. I rose at five, read during the whole of the day except such hours as chapel and hall required, allotting to each portion of time its peculiar branch of study." He was thus induced to relinquish the charms of company and dissipation, and to apply himself with renewed ardour to study and improvement. After obtaining his bachelor's degree, Paley accepted the situation of assistant in an academy at Greenwich, where he remained about three years. Returning to Christ's College in 1766, he was elected a Fellow of that Society, and was not long after associated in the tuition together with Dr. Law. It was here that Dr. Paley prepared those public lectures on moral and political philosophy and the Greek

Testament, which constituted the general outlines of those works which have attached celebrity to his

name.

Dr. Paley left college and married in 1776, and as his talents began about this time to be fully appreciated, his hopes of church preferment were, ere long, fully realized. The Bishop of Carlisle, who had given him a living in Cumberland, now presented him to that of Appleby in Westmoreland, together with Dalston. In 1782, Dr. Paley obtained the archdeaconry of Carlisle. He published in 1785 his " Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy," and in five years after, his Hora Paulinæ, or Observations on the Epistles of St. Paul, appeared. In 1794 his Views of the Evidences of Christianity was published, and in 1801 his celebrated treatise on Natural Theology. He died at Bishopwearmonth in 1805.

The treatise containing the moral and political principles of Dr. Paley, has been for many years, and is now, a very popular book; but it is less susceptible of analysis than any other book on moral science which has fallen under my notice. Though the author is an able and strenuous advocate of a

particular theory, and though that theory rests upon principles few in number, and clearly enough unfolded, yet the illustrations and remarks are of such a detached and desultory character, that the mind has little hold of the system. It is broken down into so many fragments, so to speak, that a considerable intellectual effort is necessary to keep the general principles constantly and steadily before the mind.

It has always appeared to me that Dr. Paley had a somewhat peculiarly constituted mind. Though not deficient, upon the whole, of skill for detecting and elucidating general principles, and of power to arrange them into a harmonious system, yet his mind was essentially, in all its leading features, of a matter of fact or compiling character. He delighted in matters of detail. This is sufficiently manifested by the general stamp of all his works. The peculiar cast of his mind induced him to fall readily enough in with the views and opinions of other writers, and his own good sense and correct judgment enabled him to exhibit them, on almost every occasion, in a very popular and engaging light, And this habit of mind has been of great service to his reputation and usefulness, for it has enabled him to give to the public a great deal of instructive and